


Restore You

by Island_of_Reil



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Caretaking, Claiming Bites, Comfort, Erwin Has Both His Arms, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mild D/s, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-14 22:30:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4582545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You,” and now Erwin cups Armin’s chin in one broad hand, “will do nothing but sleep, eat, bathe, rest, perhaps read for pleasure, and allow me to… restore you.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restore You

**Author's Note:**

> The [kinkmeme prompt](http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/13546.html?thread=8897002#cmt8897002) requested “Erwin/Armin, A/B/O, healthy, happy, and consensual,” with the two of them taking a leave of absence for Armin’s heat. I was slightly influenced by the partial fill [“One Week,”](http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/13546.html?thread=9246186#cmt9246186) which is very good and which I hope is finished someday.

The ride east from the castle is silent, tense. Though the weather is unusually brisk and their pace isn’t hurried, Armin is flushed a constant pink, absentmindedly plucking at his collar as he shifts from buttock to buttock in the saddle.

The sight of his bonded so distressed in his heat sends Erwin’s own hormones fountaining through him. He longs to satisfy Armin, to ease him. But, for now, he forces himself to turn his eyes back to the road and keep them there. Armin deserves so much better than a rough, quick fuck on a horse blanket in the weeds by the ditch.

Their destination is a modest-sized cottage tucked into the rolling woodlands of southeastern Ehrmich. In mid-afternoon Erwin spots the silo of the nearby farm. Hens peck in the dirt near its barn, and further off a small clutch of sheep and goats placidly crop the grass. Half an hour later, excitement flares in Erwin’s breast as he catches sight of the cottage’s roof.

“We’re here,” he says softly.

The pink of Armin’s face darkens. His eyes, when he turns them to Erwin, are dark too, and wide; his lower lip, swollen and red, is parted slightly from the upper one. In him, at the same time, Erwin can see both the sweet and earnest boy who pledged his heart to humanity and the ruthless soldier who will take everything Erwin has to give him and more until both of them lie spent.

They’ve barely reined in their horses before Erwin leaps from the saddle. Within the minute he’s got all their belongings in his hands, under his arms, even across his back. Armin makes a token protest, but Erwin pretends not to hear, letting him do no more than lead their mounts to the the tiny stable in the side yard and settle them in.

Erwin’s key turns smoothly in the well-oiled lock. Leaving the door slightly ajar, he sets the saddlebags down in a corner of the parlor. A few moments later Armin steps over the threshold and closes the door behind him. The tremor in his hands makes it rattle a bit in the frame.

All alone now, but for one another. The closest company would be back at the farm they passed, five kilometers back. Erwin could drag Armin outside again, strip him naked, throw him to the ground, and take him there. His moans and cries would go unheard by human ears.

But Erwin didn’t take Armin away from his work only to fuck him. The commander’s suite at the castle would have afforded them all the comfort and privacy they need; somewhat more comfort than this cottage, actually. It would not have helped Erwin fulfill his duty to his bonded omega, which far exceeds mere physical satiation.

Armin takes in his new surroundings. The parlor is dominated by a massive hearth, a broad, deep sofa, and a tall bookcase crammed with books. There’s a small writing desk in one corner and a woven rug on the floor. Though his eyes don’t appear to be seeing much, he says with a subdued note of surprise, “It’s clean. Not dusty at all.” His voice is husky.

“It is,” Erwin replies with the same thickness in his voice. “I have a few junior Corpsmen attend to it regularly. Mostly it’s just a spot of dusting and sweeping.” He pauses. “I did, however, send a rider here this morning to fill the chest in the cellar with ice, food, and vine; and the hearth racks with firewood. I ordered him to draw from the well, too, and fill up a few empty barrels, so we have clean water for bathing, cooking, and drinking.”

In the still of the cottage, birdsong a distant murmur on the other side of the window panes, he can hear Armin catch his breath.

“Do we have enough food and water for… an entire week?” Armin asks, his voice tremulous.

Erwin walks slowly toward Armin, unbuttoning his jacket as he moves, his eyes never leaving Armin’s. Armin looks dizzied, but he holds Erwin’s gaze resolutely as he licks his parted lips.

“If by chance we do not,” Erwin murmurs, coming to stand only centimeters from Armin, towering over him, “I will draw more water from the well, and I will buy more food at the farm we passed on the way. Or I will hunt for us. You,” and now he cups Armin’s chin in one broad hand, “will do nothing but sleep, eat, bathe, rest, perhaps read for pleasure, and allow me to… restore you.”

He drops his head to claim Armin’s lips, but before he can, Armin surges up against him. Standing on his toes, he strains upward, mouth rough and wild against Erwin’s, fingers slipping beneath Erwin’s open jacket to dig into the linen of his shirt. Erwin pins him against his own body, feeling Armin’s rigid muscles trembling under his hands and the shifter-like heat that radiates from his flesh. He marvels at the strength and ferocity of the desire contained in a body so small and slender, even in manhood.

When Erwin pulls back to catch his breath, he smiles at Armin’s piteous whine of frustration. He throbs, too, because it is the same sound Armin makes when he hasn’t the breath to say _faster, harder, please, Erwin, don’t stop, **more.**_ And then he crouches, and when he rises again he has Armin cradled in his arms like a bride and gasping with the surprise of his boots having left the floor.

It’s a half-dozen paces to the short hallway that runs to the bedroom at the rear of the cottage, another half-dozen paces to the bedroom door. Left a hair ajar, it yields without a squeak to the pressure of Erwin’s shoulder. The bed is vast, its dust cover drawn tightly over a thick mattress and a multitude of well-stuffed pillows. Across from its foot stands the hearth, smaller than the one in the parlor and with its own modest rack of logs. The table running the length of the rear wall bears a washbowl and covered pitcher, a girandole with five beeswax tapers, a box of matches, and a few stacks of thick towels.

Erwin lays Armin face up on the bed near the foot with his boots dangling off the edge. Armin begins to sit up, as frantic to be out of his clothes as if they were on fire. Erwin gives a minute shake of his head. “Lie back,” he says, gently but firmly, and with his palms against Armin’s breast he presses him back down with the same gentle firmness. Armin subsides against the dust cover, fingers worrying once more at his collar. The node of cartilage in his throat rises and falls rapidly; the front of his trousers is obscenely tented.

Erwin grasps the sole of one boot and tugs at it, Armin clutching at the dust cover for anchorage. The boot comes off, and Erwin peels away the woolen sock beneath. Fondly he runs his hand over Armin’s bare instep, eliciting a shaky intake of breath, before he pulls off the other boot and sock. He sets the footwear on the hearth.

Turning back to the bed, he reaches for Armin’s hands and pulls him upward, to sit with his legs out before him. Armin moves with fluid obedience, yielding, pliant. Without being told to he raises his arms. Erwin makes short work of the jacket, and the buttons of Armin’s shirt slip just as smoothly from their buttonholes under Erwin’s fingers. Erwin licks his lips as Armin’s chest and belly emerge, the skin smooth, the nipples like tiny blades. He will kiss and tongue every centimeter of that expanse later, with Armin arching beneath his mouth and begging for release.

For now he merely shoves back that cruel collar, baring the slender flushed neck. Freeing Armin of the rest of his shirt will have to wait until Erwin has tasted that hot pink skin. At the touch of Erwin’s tongue and teeth Armin rolls his head backward with a strangled sound, gripping Erwin’s shoulders and pressing his bonded’s head into the half-exposed crook of his own neck.

Still trapped beneath Armin’s collar is his claim mark, which Erwin bit into his flesh the night they were bonded. When an omega is not in heat, the claim mark resembles nothing so much as a small pox scar. Hormones swell it hard and hot, nearly glowing, and ultrasensitive. It burns against Erwin’s cheek through the linen, despite all the starch in the collar. He pushes the shirt further down, baring Armin’s sharp-boned shoulders and the hollows of his collarbone. Trapping Armin’s cuff-clad wrists at the small of his back in his own massive hands, Erwin sucks and nips at the mark until Armin is squirming in his grip, his moans high-pitched and dissolving into sobs.

_“Erwin—”_

The word is cut off by a sharp cry as Armin jolts spasmodically within the cage of Erwin’s arms. Gasping and panting, he slumps against his bonded’s chest. Erwin frees one hand to slide around the front of Armin’s body, feels the dwindling hardness and spreading dampness at the front of his trousers. “The first of many,” he whispers. Armin shivers as he falls against the dust cover, shirt rucked up around his waist.

Erwin works deftly at the buttons of Armin’s fly. Despite his post-orgasmic languor, Armin automatically lifts his hips to let Erwin tug both trousers and underwear down and off. The garments are damp both fore and aft, as his slick has been flowing. The room smells of his heat already and they’ve barely gotten started.

After tossing the clothes to land on the hearthstones beside the boots, Erwin gently hefts Armin’s body with one arm so that he can turn back the dust cover with his free hand. He works the sleeves of the shirt off Armin’s forearms as he lays his naked bonded down on the finely woven topsheet, then tucks a pillow under his head. Further up on the bed, Armin’s jacket lies discarded; Erwin hangs it on a mantle peg, the shirt on the peg beside it.

Erwin’s own trousers are far too tight. He unbuttons the fly, then reaches in to free his cock. It springs loose from its linen confines of his underwear, a pearl of pre-come rolling off the head. Armin’s eyes flutter as he comes back to himself, and the sight of Erwin’s straining erection elicits a soft groan from him and a visible twitch from his own spent cock.

“Getting excited again already?” Erwin teases him. “So eager.” With a gentle hand on each of Armin’s knees, he pushes his thighs apart and kneels between them, where Armin’s cock has begun to swell again. “You still look so young and sweet and innocent. The perfect disguise for a cunning strategist. But also for what a needy, wanton slut you are when you’re in heat.” Armin moans, then moans again as Erwin’s hand slips down between his ass and the topsheet.

“So open and wet for me,” Erwin murmurs, two fingers insinuating themselves into Armin’s body without the slightest resistance as Armin releases a sobbing, hitchy breath. More slick trickles down the back of Erwin’s hand. Immediately he slips in a third finger and presses a little harder, seeking and finding the protuberance of springy flesh. Armin yelps, and his entire body jolts so hard he nearly rises off the sheets. His cock once more stands at full attention, a fresh bead of pre-come welling at the slit.

Erwin swipes the thumb of his free hand lightly across the tip. Armin muffles a second cry with the knuckles of his right hand. “Don’t,” Erwin says softly, pulling his wrist away from his mouth. “Let me hear you. You don’t have to be quiet or dignified for anyone here.” Armin’s face goes bright red and his eyes flick away toward a corner of the bedroom. But when Erwin bends down and laps gently at his cockhead, Armin does not stifle his sharp, broken moan.

“That’s it,” Erwin whispers encouragingly against Armin’s swollen flesh, then mouths it gently up and down the length, alternating sucking with licking. His fingers are still busy inside Armin, lightly caressing, scissoring back and forth, once or twice curling into a half-fist. Armin’s hips work up and down between Erwin’s mouth and hand. Eyes closed, lips parted, he babbles and moans continuously, twining strands of Erwin’s hair around his fingers. When his cockhead touches the back of Erwin’s throat, Erwin sucks him for all he’s worth at the same time he curls his fingers hard into that sensitive node of tissue.

Armin wails, yanking on the lock of hair he was fondling. His back arches as he slams his hips against Erwin’s face so hard that Erwin’s jaw smarts along with his scalp. The force of it surprises Erwin as it always does, even though Armin is full-grown and healthy and a trained soldier and in the grip of powerful hormones. But he is not surprised at the sudden taste of salt in his mouth. He swallows every drop as Armin falls limp again, then lies beside him on the bed and laps his shrinking cock clean until Armin pushes his head away with a whine of discomfort.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Erwin says, rising again. Armin’s mouth twists, but he nods and says nothing. This must be the strongest heat he’s ever had, Erwin thinks; he’s just come twice but is still loath to let Erwin out of his sight. He won’t rest easily until he’s been knotted at least once, probably more than that. Erwin thinks that before they’re rendered immobile, which could last for a few hours, he should bring up some provisions for them.

Though the ground floor is not especially warm, the cellar is markedly cooler and its air quite dry. Erwin didn’t bother to put himself away before descending the rough wooden steps, and his cock shrinks a little in the chill. The huge steel-lined oak chest on the floor brims with ice chips that have barely melted at all, and nestled among them is an embarrassment of culinary riches. Erwin takes a large copper bowl off a wall shelf and fills it halfway with ice. Into the chips he tucks a bottle of red vine, two grilled trout fillets wrapped in butcher’s paper, a chunk of soft cheese in a cheesecloth, and a sack of late summer berries. Under his arm he tucks a wrapped loaf of bread that was on the shelf beside the bowl. No longer fresh, but it’ll do for now; he’ll get another loaf from the farmer’s wife in a day or two. Several ripe red tomatoes stand on the shelf as well, and he puts two of them on top of the other food in the bowl.

He closes the chest lid and climbs the stairs again. Back in the bedroom, he sets bowl and bread down on the long table as Armin’s eyes track his movements anxiously. Armin’s color is still high, his claim mark remains an angry red, and his face and chest are sheened with sweat. If he were in this room and not in heat, Erwin thinks, he’d be loath to take off even his jacket.

Empty-handed again, he bends down to kiss Armin’s brow. “One more minute, darling, and no more than that. I’m just going into the kitchen for utensils.”

“I don’t need anything to eat or drink,” Armin says, his voice thick, almost guttural. “Just you.”

Erwin chuckles. “Well, once you’ve had me, you may change your mind. Let’s make it as easy as possible on ourselves when we’ve used up all our energies.” Armin closes his eyes and doesn’t respond.

The kitchen is kept in order when the cottage stands vacant, and indeed it takes Erwin less than a minute to pile plates, forks, knives, glasses, napkins, and corkscrew onto a tray. These he sets beside the copper bowl on the long table in the bedroom. He plucks the vine bottle out of the bowl and flicks the screwdriver open. Armin remains silent, but the impatience creasing his brow speaks volumes. Within seconds the cork gives way with a low pop, and vine burbles softly into a glass.

Erwin takes a deep draught. He drinks so seldom and so sparingly that his size is no protection against the rush of warmth in his blood, the sudden sparking of heat in his groin. He sits on the bed and, with his free arm behind Armin’s shoulders, draws him upward. “Vine?” he asks, holding the glass to Armin’s mouth.

His earlier words notwithstanding, Armin nods, then takes a few sips before turning his head away. Erwin lets him fall gently backward, lips wet and red, eyes dilating afresh before he closes them with a murmur of pleasure. The alcohol deepens his flush and dampens his bangs with perspiration. His cock has begun to rise a third time; a new trickle of slick, thin and pearlescent, clings to his inner thigh. The tableau he presents makes Erwin’s throat tighten and his belly clench with a fresh pang of wet heat. He begins to undress, moving quickly. When he’s down to his trousers and boots, Armin’s eyes open again and longingly survey his half-clad body.

Erwin makes a point of slowing down, letting Armin drink him in. He neatly hangs his jacket and shirt on the mantle pegs next to Armin’s. Then he sits on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots and socks. The mattress shifts behind and under him as Armin sits up and runs a loving hand over the muscles of his back, trailing his fingers down Erwin’s spine. Erwin shivers and inhales sharply as he rises again to put his boots on the hearth near Armin’s. 

He turns again and fixes Armin’s darkened eyes with his own. His cock, once more half-hard, is already on display, but as he works his trousers and underwear down his body he sees Armin stare just as hungrily at his sharply defined abdominal muscles, the deeply cut vee of his groin, his powerful thighs. He continues to hold Armin’s gaze challengingly as he kneels on the bed once more, forcing Armin to draw his feet up out of Erwin’s way. When he grabs Armin’s knees and pushes them apart this time, he’s much less gentle. “What is it you wanted, Armin?” he growls.

“You,” Armin says, voice cracking a little. “You inside me, knotting me.” He reaches down and palms Erwin’s cock, squeezing a little harder than he normally would. Erwin hisses with both discomfort and pleasure as he swells to full readiness at Armin’s touch. Without warning he jerks upward on Armin’s knees, unbalancing him so that he falls flat on his back again. Erwin crawls up his supine form, eyes still pinned on his, hands still holding his knees apart, and jabs the tip of his cock against the cleft of Armin’s ass.

“This?” he rumbles. “This is what you want?”

“Oh, God, _yes,_ ” Armin groans, bucking his hips upward.

Erwin smiles. He doesn’t enter Armin, not just yet. He relinquishes one knee so that he can push Armin’s head to one side and draw his tongue over his claim mark. Armin lets out a long, luxuriant, sobbing moan, the kind he would never make if anyone else within two kilometers might overhear him. The sound makes Erwin throb savagely. He continues to lick Armin’s claim mark, skimming his teeth over it, while Armin writhes underneath him and thrusts his hips against Erwin’s. His cockhead leaves a wet smear against Erwin’s belly.

“I’ll give it to you when I’m done enjoying you,” Erwin says against Armin’s neck, low and dark. “Not before.” Armin whines with the frustration he can barely hold within his skin, but he stills a little, though he continues to quiver and thrum with energy.

Erwin moves slightly downward and releases Armin’s other knee so he can brace his lower body against the bed. Armin’s legs remain half-splayed beneath Erwin, and Armin semi-instinctively tilts his head back to bare the vulnerable stretch of his throat. Erwin caresses all of it with his lips, nipping the hollow lightly here and there, each touch of his teeth drawing a gasp from Armin. He turns his head to trail his tongue over the sharp rise of Armin’s collarbone, one side and then the other, before he fulfills his earlier promise to himself and moves further down.

The bodies of most Survey Corpsmen ripple with musculature: bulging chests, rock-ridged abdomens, arms with thews that shift under the skin like snakes. Armin, in contrast, has grown into a lean, wiry strength. With a shirt on, sometimes even with it off, he’s dismissed as scrawny by those who don’t know him. It’s true he hasn’t the raw physical power that Erwin or Levi does, even that Jean or Eren does. But he is far from weak, and the spareness of his build lends him speed and stamina that are a match for his mind.

Nobody touching his lips and tongue to the muscles of Armin’s chest could ever think him weak. Erwin takes his time doing just that, not only to keep his bonded’s nipples aching with anticipation, but to appreciate how the low rises of Armin’s pectorals twitch and flex under his kisses. Armin makes a continuous soft, humming sort of moan, fingers kneading the topsheet, and he tilts his head back and his chest upward in unsubtle demand.

But Erwin continues to take his time, gauging the build of tension in Armin’s body. When the moment is right, he moves his head swiftly and takes a nipple between his lips. Armin, with a soft cry, arches against him more forcefully, and Erwin wraps his arms around his bonded’s waist to press his body closer to his own. He worries the sharp little jut of flesh gently in his teeth, scraping his teeth over the crown, once or twice delivering a decisive nip. Then he abandons it with his mouth to give the other nipple the same treatment while tweaking the saliva-slickened first one between his fingers.

Armin is practically vibrating beneath him, a thin wet rope of pre-come connecting his cockhead to Erwin’s chest and his flowing slick making the sheet damp beneath Erwin’s lower belly. Erwin responds by sliding further down on the bed, mouth trailing over Armin’s abdominal muscles and making him shiver with both ticklishness and anticipation.

“I…” Armin’s breath seems to have outrun him by several paces. From the vantage point of Armin’s navel, Erwin lifts his head to stare at his face, as deep pink as sunset. Amusement bubbling through his voice like water in a brook, he asks, “Yes?”

“I… don’t want your mouth again,” Armin gasps.

“Who says I was going to give it to you again?”

Erwin suddenly veers off course, dragging the edges of his teeth across the bony protrusion of Armin’s right hip. With a little _eep_ of surprise Armin twists in his grasp. Just as abruptly, Erwin pins him to the bed with one enormous hand atop each lean quadriceps. Armin’s upper body continues to jerk with his momentum; he forces himself still with a palm on the topsheet to either side of his pelvis. When Erwin looks up at him again there is no trace of amusement in his words. “Present to me,” he says sternly, all commander, all alpha.

Armin’s eyes widen and he manages a wobbly nod before Erwin releases his thighs. He flips his body over, pressing his forehead into the topsheet, spraddling his knees widely and thrusting his hard, round glutes upward and outward. A glistening freshet of slick wends its way down his balls, drawn up hard and tight beneath, and then down the heavy-hanging cock whose drops blend into its flow.

Erwin takes a few moments to gloat greedily at the picture Armin makes. Then he cups and caresses the bottom presented to him: a precious gift, flawless in its beauty, yet also a reminder of what Erwin owes to his bonded. Had he not just brought Armin off twice, he would take his time with his ass, fingering and stretching it until Armin couldn’t hold it still in Erwin’s hands. But his need by now is nearly as great as Armin’s.

His erection feels like it’s commandeered all the blood in his body, leaving his head light and his cock distended to the point of pain. He forces himself to rise and move to the long table so that he can grab a towel, which he wishes he’d put down on the bed as soon as he’d gotten Armin’s clothes off. He spreads it beneath Armin’s raised midsection and between his parted knees, then climbs back onto the bed behind him.

With the fingers of his left hand splayed between Armin’s buttocks, holding them apart, he use his right hand to guide himself until the head, like a great bright ruby in a nobleman’s coffer, is just barely lodged inside. The outer ring of muscle twitches, as if it could draw him in on its own, and Armin squirms with desperation. Erwin smiles, grasps Armin’s hips in both hands, and drives himself smoothly home. The smile flees his face immediately as he and Armin moan in unison, lighter voice and deeper voice harmonizing in pleasure.

He foregoes his usual moment of utter stillness, the moment in which he savors Armin’s tight, silken heat enclosing him completely, and instead begins to withdraw for a second thrust as soon as he’s bottomed out. Within a few more lunges into Armin he’s found his rhythm. Armin, whose body has moved with his in battle for many more years than it has in bed, finds it in the very same moment, possibly even a split second before.

The skin over Armin’s hips is slippery against Erwin’s hands as he shoves himself backward to meet each of Erwin’s thrusts. He pants more than he moans now, and his hair is plastered to his temples and upper nape. Every centimeter of his skin that Erwin can see is dark pink under its fine film of sweat: his arms as they brace against the bed, his nape except for the crimson glare of his claim mark, his back as its muscles bunch and heave, his buttocks as they clench and relax around Erwin’s cock. It’s this last part, watching Armin strain and strive to pull as much of Erwin into his body as possible, that brings on the telltale ache in Erwin’s balls, sets the heat to rising from them up into his belly.

He drives harder, faster, shorter into Armin, droplets of their mingled sweat flying everywhere as flesh slaps loud and lewd against flesh. “Al- almost,” he grunts, feeling the bones of Armin’s hips pressing hard against his fingertips through a thin layer of skin that even now is mottling with bruises. Armin makes an incoherent noise of reply, of goading, of his own oncoming orgasm as his ass tightens around Erwin’s cock. Erwin can’t catch his breath for a long moment, until he can, and then he’s letting it out in an endless groan as his cock twitches and spurts long ropes of come inside Armin. And then swells even wider, especially around the base.

“Oh, yes,” Armin chokes out as he feels himself be knotted. Erwin sighs softly. For him, this second tumescence is not one of exciting, cresting tension but one of release, of completion, of bonding. For Armin, it is an even fiercer pressure against his hypersensitized prostate. He bucks hard against Erwin’s stilled hips a few more times before he cries out and shudders. His come stripes the towel beneath him, then is absorbed into its fibers.

Erwin waits until Armin falls still and his breath has evened out. Then he rocks back on his knees, taking Armin with him. With one arm around his bonded, cradling him against his own chest, he seats himself near the headboard, piling cushions between it and his back so that he can recline. In his lap, Armin breathes easily and does not stir. Erwin gently tilts Armin’s head back and observes, with a sweet satisfaction, how his eyelashes rest softly against his cheeks and how his lips just barely curve upward. His color has mostly returned to normal; even his claim mark seems less livid, though of course it will flare up again and again throughout the course of the week.

Long, placid minutes later, Armin’s hand rises to his own waist, his palm covering the back of Erwin’s hand. There it lingers, for perhaps ten seconds, before it falls again.

Erwin brushes his lips against the damp fair crown of Armin’s head. “Shall I feed you yet?” he murmurs. Armin gives a minute shake of his head, then releases a long, sighing breath before slipping into what Erwin hopes are the kindest of dreams.

***

The week flies. The memories of it, later, will blur together in Erwin’s mind. He is only ever out of physical contact with Armin for calls to nature, to draw more water from the well, and for two visits to the farm down the road. For each visit he rises with the sun, leaving Armin to his dreams in the tousled sheets. When he returns with the fresh loaf of bread, its buoyant yeast scent overcome by the smells of rut and heat as soon as he steps into the bedroom, he finds his bonded moving restlessly in his sleep. He lays the bread down on the table, strips off his clothes to let them lie where they fall, and hastens to his side.

In rest, they fit side to side; in rut, front to back or front to front. When they are knotted together, Erwin hand-feeds Armin, intermittently pressing a vine or water glass to his lips, then dines himself. Once or twice the knot persists for a few hours, and Erwin passes the latter hour reading field reports while Armin either dozes or pores over a book rescued from the parlor bookcase. It’s an amusing sort of domestic scene, Erwin thinks, their minds deep in their separate intellectual pursuits while their bodies are joined so intimately. He wonders how it would look to the prudish sorts of betas who see alphas and omegas as little more than beasts in human form.

He bathes Armin, then himself, daily. He waits until the knot has subsided, when the sweat and fluids have dried on their bodies and their hair is matted, and when Armin will be docile with fulfillment. After Armin has settled himself in the heated water, Erwin scatters bath salts bought in Mitras across its surface. Their scent is briny, but in a pleasant way that is somehow both soothing and bracing. The first time they release their aroma into the kitchen, Armin’s face fills with a soft light, almost a holy one. “The sea,” he murmurs, tilting his head against the tub’s rim and closing his eyes. Erwin, whose childhood was filled with books as dangerous as the dog-eared one that Armin still keeps under lock and key, smiles and dips a washcloth into the water before lathering it with soap.

By their final morning in the cottage, Armin appears to have little more on his neck than a faded pox scar. It disappears under the collar of his fresh linen shirt as he dons clothes again for the first time since Erwin first undressed him. They’re bringing a saddlebag of garments, towels, and linens back with them for the launderers, as well as what remains of the food and vine. Erwin dragged the tub out the back door of the kitchen last night and tipped out the last of the bathwater into the grass. The junior Corpsmen who keep the cottage up will set everything else to rights.

Erwin swings up into the saddle; Armin is already astride his horse. The weather has grown warm again, the farewell kiss of summer, but Armin’s jacket over his shirt does not cause him to sweat or flush in the least. He might later, Erwin thinks, with the exertion of the ride. But no more than riding a good horse down an easy road on a pleasant day would do that to any other fit, healthy soldier.

“Shall we?” he asks Armin mildly, and Armin breaks into a smile to rival the mellow sun above them. Erwin kicks his horse into a trot, heading west, his well-restored beloved at first behind and then alongside him.


End file.
